^20:2 The doctrine of transmigration is given as one of the reasons for abstinence from animal food. If S'akyamuni on this occasion deliberately partook of boar's flesh, it will strengthen the position taken up by many that the Twelvefold Chain of Causation implies, not transmigration or re-birth, but heredity.

^21:1 In "Bukkyo Kakushu Koyo" (vol. i. fol. 1 and 2), a semi-official manual of Buddhism published in Tokyo in the twenty-second year of Meiji (1889), mention is made of three Councils, one within the grotto () at Rajagriha, consisting of 500 arhats under the presidency of Kas'yapa, which drew up the Canon of three Pitakas; another outside the Grotto (), at which Bashika () and others drew up a Canon of five Pitakas; and again a third, a Council of the Mahayana, under the presidency of Ananda and Maitreya (not to be confounded with the Buddha of the Future). The two Hinayana Councils represent the Sthavira and Mahasanghika respectively; the third is possibly an invention of later times, fabricated as a means of accounting for the existence of the Northern or Mahayana Canon. This account is based on Hiouen Thsang (Kern). The five Pitakas will be found in Nanjo's catalogue. They comprise nothing but Mahayana Sutras (no Vinaya or Abhidharma), there being in the Chinese Canon a special section for the Hinayana Sutras, and a miscellaneous section for Sutras of later addition. The five sections are: (i.) Prajnaparamita, 22 works; (ii.) Ratna Kuta, 37; (iii.) Mahasannipata, 27; (iv.) Avatamsaka or Kegon, 35; and (v.) Nirvana, 12. It seems probable that these sections represent each the books cultivated by a particular school, sect, or country, and that they have thus been grouped together so as to preserve the characteristic features of the different schools. Thus the Amitabha books fall entirely into the Ratnakuta class, etc. Strange to say, the Saddharmapundarika, which plays so important a part in Japanese Buddhism, is classed among the miscellaneous Sutras of later addition.

^22:1 According to the Record of the Transmission of the Dharmapitaka (Nanjo Cat. Trip., No. 1340), both Dhitika and his successor Micchaka laboured in Turkestan, their activities coming somewhat after the times of As'oka.

^23:1 This tour, according to the Chinese (see Prof. Pelliot in Bulletin de l'Ecole Francaise de l'Extreme Orient), extended as far as to Wu-tai-shan in North China, the traditional home of the mythological Manjus'ri.

^23:2 These are technically known as the Ten Indulgences.

^23:3 Whilst some traditions seem to identify the two, the authorities quoted by Kern treat them as distinct persons, and represent Yas'as as appealing to S'anavas'as for his advice and assistance. But the accounts are hopelessly inconsistent and confusing. Kala As'oka was the king under whom the Council met.